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January 2015

Jan 29, 2015

This is my last of three blogs about: ‘why the IEEE 1687-2014 IJTAG standard?’ The series began by reviewing why IJTAG was developed, followed by a blog on how the growing pains surrounding embedded instruments drove the development of IJTAG’s powerful features, which were a response to the engineering needs that led to IJTAG’s development in the first place. I served as vice chairman of the IEEE 1687 IJTAG working group, so I was there when the group – the ‘founding fathers’ of IJTAG – griped about their problems and did some crystal ball predictions about the future and expected growing pains.

I suppose this is what happens whenever a new standard is being developed. You start by listing all of the capabilities you’d like to include in the document, but, in the end, you have to set priorities for the first release of the standard. (You have to draw the line on creeping elegance somewhere.) Once the standard is approved, you start thinking about what to put in the next version. That’s where we are today.

Jan 27, 2015

In my previous blog, "IJTAG: It's all about Embedded Instruments", I discussed why the IEEE 1687 IJTAG standard was developed in the first place. The bottom line was that a standard was needed because embedded instrumentation had been experiencing an increasing list of growing pains, which brought the issue of scalability to the fore. In this blog, I’m going to explain from my perspective as vice chairman of the IJTAG working group how the approved standard addresses those growing pains with some really powerful features, which, if you did a fast read of the standard, you might not think twice about. These are some of the ‘can’t-miss’ features of IJTAG.

Jan 21, 2015

Since the IEEE 1687 Internal JTAG (IJTAG) standard was formally accepted by the IEEE on November 3, 2014, all of us on the IJTAG working group, as cohorts in our little conspiracy, have received congratulations from many of our peers for finally finishing this effort. (Thank you for that!). However, the number one question I am asked is: “What are you going to do now that you have all this free time?” (Ha ha!)